Anita Dunn

Before the question, how about a few statistics? The 20th century was mankind's most brutal century. Roughly 16 million people lost their lives during World War I; about 60 million died during World War II. Wars during the 20th century cost an estimated 71 million to 116 million lives. The number of war dead pales in comparison with the number of people who lost their lives at the hands of their own governments.

Is it hasta la vista, baby, for the venerable White House daily briefing for the media? Way back there in 1955 James Hagerty, the press secretary for President Dwight Eisenhower, came to the conclusion that admitting television cameras to presidential press conferences Ike held in the Indian Treaty Room of the next-door to the White House Old Executive Office Building (now named for Eisenhower) was the future.

Tuesday's All Things Considered on NPR played up the long-term effect of the anti-ObamaCare "death panel" talking point and labeled this phrase "fake news." Don Gonyea let President Obama; Anita Dunn, his former communications director; and a talking head from the left-wing Center for American Progress decry the "dishonest" message from ObamaCare opponents and lament the "lasting negative effect" of the "early disinformation campaign" against the law. He touted that "the false claims of death panels would be named the lie of the year by the fact-checking organization PolitiFact."

Monday on Andrea Mitchell Reports, the host salivated over the “magic on stage” at the Clinton/Warren rally Cincinnati earlier in the day. Mitchell and Anita Dunn, former White House communications director, went back and forth as they praised the pair for their “very real” chemistry on stage. They went on and on, suggesting the women looked like a “pretty good winning ticket for the fall” who resembled the “boomer magic” of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

During an interview with former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, John Heilemann called out the Obama official for using a “strawman argument” to defend the Democratic Committee’s decision to only have 6 presidential debates. The With All Due Respect host challenged Dunn over her assertion that the hypothetical number of debates would be either 6 or 25 and wondered why Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz couldn’t simply raise the number to 10 as some of Hillary Clinton’s challengers would prefer.

On Monday, CBS This Morning brought on Anita Dunn, former White House Communications Director for Barack Obama, to promote Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign as well as Democratic rivals Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.

Left of center columnist Kirsten Powers on Wednesday called the Obama administration's repeated attacks on Fox News "completely despicable."

Appearing on Fox News's Hannity, Powers noted that "any president would be happy" if there were just one news outlet "that allows people to say things about him that he doesn't like" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

In a column which went up this morning, Fox News Political Analyst Kirsten Powers, whose political positions certainly lean left and is a self-described liberal, ripped into President Obama and his administration for what she correctly characterizes as their "strategy to delegitimize a news organization" -- hers.

Her column is about far more than Obama's recent complaint to the New Republic's Chris Hughes (covered by Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters) that "If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest, then you'll see more of them doing it." What Powers recounts is a strategy first employed in 2009 and apparently being revived, now that Obama no longer has to answer to America's voters, to marginalize the only U.S. network which still tries to be fair and balanced (bolds are mine):

His show's called The Daily Rundown. And sure enough, Chuck Todd ran down Rick Santorum this morning as just another "flavor of the day" who "probably won't be the nominee." Apparently, trouncing Mitt Romney in three contests last week, and leading by a reportedly huge margin in Romney's native state of Michigan, isn't enough to impress Chuck.

But Todd totally swerved around Anita Dunn, failing to question his guest about the story of her big-money hypocrisy making today's news. As Obama's White House communications director, Dunn regularly went after hedge funds. But now as a PR consultant, as the Washington Free Beacon has reported, Dunn is taking hedge fund money for a campaign to promote the industry's image. Incredibly, nary a word about it from Todd. Video after the jump.

Emily Lenzner, Executive Director of Communications at ABC News for its DC-based shows, who spent eight months in 2007-2008 as editorial producer for This Week with George Stephanopoulos (for whom she also toiled inside the Clinton White House), has left ABC News for Anita Dunn's “strategic communications firm.” SKDKnickerbocker announced Monday she'll be a Managing Director with the firm led by Dunn, the Obama administration's Communications Director in 2009. SKDKnickerbocker's “About” page boasts:

We helped Barack Obama by being the only firm in America to do direct mail and television advertising for his 2008 presidential victory. We helped SEIU fight to stave off millions of dollars of healthcare cuts.

Their “Case Studies” page, which touts work for a bunch of liberal candidates, highlights “FAR-REACHING ROLE IN ELECTION: Obama for America.” That page trumpets: “No other firm had as far-reaching a role in President Obama's election...with Anita Dunn serving as one of the top officials of the campaign and the firm producing both television advertising and direct mail for the campaign.”

Previewing the State of the Union on Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith spoke with former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, who claimed the GOP “made a decision a year ago that they weren’t going to cooperate on anything.” Smith replied: “I don’t think you can say what you just said and look at what happened with health care, especially in the last month, and be honest about it.”

Dunn, who just recently stepped down as communications director to the Obama White House, disregarded Smith’s challenge:

Harry, I disagree with that, mostly because I was working at the White House for most of this time. And I saw how many meetings with Republicans, how many attempts to reach out, how much time was spent listening to their concerns. An entire summer spent giving a lot of room to a bipartisan process which ultimately Republicans walked away from, even as their leaders from day one announced that they were going to kill health care no matter what was in the bill.

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